Is it possible to grow a fruit without having to grow the entire plant?
A lot of people who initially are a bit shocked, like you’re growing a fruit without a plant, is that, you know, is it natural? Is it healthy? Is it sustainable? And so these are really questions that we are going to look at during the research.
There is one problem with it, which is to recreate these outside environments to recreate the sunlight. You need a really big amount of energy, and you know, we are currently in an energy transition. So we were trying to reduce our energy use and not increase it.
Basically, in my research, I want to bypass photosynthesis and give sugars directly to plants or give sugars directly to food.
The question arises is this natural? I find that really hard to answer, because everything in agriculture is natural, as well as technological.”
Lucas van der Zee – Horticulture & Product Physiology, Wageningen University, Netherlands
An extract from the work done for Nature the Journal at Uni Wageningen
Future Food Documentary
Future Food is a journey through the evolution of food. A project that aims to respond with emerging food technologies to an increasingly real and imminent problem: overpopulation.